Oxygen or No oxygen... That is the question.

Well last week was an emotional one for us. More then normal. :) As most everyone knows Jude is on oxygen and has been on oxygen since he came home from the hospital. We did a test last week as well proving that yes, he still needs it. Well, come to find out, he had a faulty gauge and hasn't been receiving oxygen the whole time he has been home. Of coarse I FREAKED out thinking all the worse case things I could, like what kind of damage has this done to his little developing brain. I called my Doctor and he quickly calmed all my fears and assured me, the only reason Jude needs the oxygen is due to the fact that his hemoglobin in low and worse case he would not have grown. Which he has very well. He grew about a pound in three weeks and with the oxygen he grew almost a pound in one week. So... he is doing very well. Learning how to smile more and more and I am just loving it. Learning to arch his neck, which he does all the time and I just learned yesterday is a bad thing. So we are working on him not doing that which makes him cranky. He loves it. He now weighs 9lbs 2 oz and growing and eating all the time. :) And as always, some pics to document it all...

Any time he is awake we are doing some type of exercise... TUMMY TIME!


Finally got to meet Gramma Great


As Usual, loves his bath. Even though he has earned the Indian name "Poops in Water" In this pic he pooped and we cleaned it all out and got him back in and pooped again. He gets a little too relaxed in his baths.


His cheeks are unreal!


He was so good to let us take him out this week. And he sure looked cute all bundled!


Admiring his room



Trying to catch a smile on camera, got the end of one.

POOR JUDE-O

Well, just in case it wasn't hard enough having a preemie with tubes everywhere, we thought it may be fun to add on an ear infection in both ears. And since we're already having so much fun with that, lets also get some shots and battle a fever and sore little legs for a few days. :) Needless to say, there has been a lot of crying going on at our house the last few days. We're doin all we can to make him feel as good as possible. He loves to lay by the heater. It really calms him. So I got the heater out, wrapped his arms up and put warm wash cloths on his legs, as of the ears, we're just suffering. Jude is doing really well for how badly I am sure he is feeling. Anyway, we're just adding this to our list of can't wait for it to be behind us!!!

Happy Due Date!

After all this time, Jude is finally zero and we are so excited to start counting forward!! He has now been home from the hospital three weeks. He's still figuring out his own lil' schedule. We are just loving having him home. We are still battling all the wires and tubes and alarms but we are just glad to have him home. Hopefully he is growing and getting big and strong and we hope to lose all the monitors and things very soon!! Things are going very well and we are so lucky to have a happy, healthy lil' guy and we are so so grateful.


Gettin ready to go out!


Such a cute lil' sleeper!


He sure is working me over, and this pic is proof! But he's so stinkin cute I don't even mind. I've learned if I pull him into bed with me like this I can milk another hour out of him.


look ma' no oxygen!! Love when he pulls both of his stickers off and we can see what he looks like without stuff all over his face. And he sure is handsome!!

Welcome home Jude-0

After 5 weeks and 3 days in the Newborn intensive care unit, we got to bring our little boy home. It was such a great day. I finally feel like a mom. I get to get up in the night with my little boy. It is finally me that gets to take care of his needs. Change that stinky butt, get peed on, puked on ect.. and I know the feeling won't last long, but as of right now... I am just loving it. There is the sweetest little being inside that tiny lil' guy. Marc and I are just head over heals for him. My mom has been so great to take some much needed time off work and instead of tending to her needs she is spending it with us. Helping me fingure out what the heck I am doing. She has been great! Thanks Momma!






We weren't the only ones happy to bath him at home in his own bath.



Today he pulled off his dots that hold his oxygen on and I had to get some pics, I have never seen him without something in his nose. It was a big moment. :)



Grandma just couldn't take it and had to get in on the action.



TAA DAA!



Nurse Linda got her hands on Jude for one last photo shoot. Unfortunately this didn't help Utah play TCU!

Happy Halloween

I think if Jude-O knew what a lame party we were going to have on Halloween, he may have stayed put a little longer. He is growing like crazy and doing really well. Still needing his oxygen and we have come to accept the fact that he will probably come home on oxygen. We just can't believe someday he will come home. Yikes! :) He now weighs 6 lbs 5 oz and is 19 inches long!! He's doing great. Just learning how to eat, which is really hard work for such a little guy! Marc and I are just so in love with him and can't wait for him to come home and rock our world.

As you can see we ran over to build a bear and bought Jude his first Halloween costume. They work great for preemies! Wish I could take credit for the idea. Thanks to Jude's former next door crib mate! :) Anyway, We took probably close to a thousand pics of this great first Halloween. Feast your eyes upon these! What a stinkin cutey!

Lil' Jude-O

Man Oh Man!! We just can't get enough of this kid. Tomorrow will be four weeks since he came into our world. We cannot even imagine that someday we will take him home with us. I'm sure we will freak out when that day comes. He's still doing very well and we feel really lucky. We know there must be a lot of people out there praying for us all and we appreciate that SOOO much. Keep 'em comin! :) Jude-O, as he's come to be known as, has just got Marc and I both wrapped around his tiny lil' finger. I can literally feel my insides turn to liquid gewy mush when I look at him. And he's got this roll of fat under his chin that is the perfect spot for kisses!! Ahhhh, seriously can't get enough. Anyways, I'll let some pics do the rest of the talking for me. Enjoy. :)






The nurses must have had a pretty slow night the other night. One of his favorite nurses Linda worked her way over to him and dressed him up for a little photo shoot. Ha Ha! We were quite surprised when we checked out her pics.



Who is more fascinated with who???



This represents a lot of how Marc and I see Jude. We peek on the side to see if his eyes are open or not. I got a pic cause I am sure someday I will forget a lot of
this.



He's gained about 2 lbs now and I think 1 lb has all gone to his checks!!





I think there is about two weeks difference in these pics!! AMAZING!!



He's getting so big!! Our lil' man soon won't be so little!



Da boiz!! Love 'em! I'd be so lost without them!! Love love love love!!

"Jude the Dude"

Well, our little guy is doing really well. They had to put him on oxygen this week but we are still feeling really positive that things are going well. He also has a new spot in the NICU. He is now in nursery B. I had to do some "annoying the staff" to get him there and now that he is, I see why I had to fight a little. It is so quiet and peaceful over there. We are so thrilled that he can get some real deep sleep. He now weighs in at a whopping 4 lbs 15 oz!! So he is growing well and we just can't get enough of him. We are trying to not poke at him a whole lot so he can get the appropriate amount of sleep he needs to develop properly and it is so hard. He's just so cute! Anyhoo... Here are some new pics of our little guy.



GO UTES!!



His first bath in the big boy tub!!



His first outfit!



A little to the left!!



Such hard work getting a bath!!

The story

It just hit me that I never told the story about Jude coming so early. Well, It was September 26th and I was 30 weeks pregnant when Marc, Sundance and I decided to take a small walk/hike up in midway. This of coarse has been approved by my doctor for me to do so.

We had all sorts of signs telling us something was going to happen. One, Sundance had been super clingy to me. I now know she knew the baby was coming. Two, we had been released from our church calling much earlier than we planned. Three, That same day in church I read my patriachal blessing that there would be a time in our life where there would be emotional and physical problems. I just thought to myself, hope that's far in the future. Ha Ha. Four, We buckled down and bought a second car the week before and we hadn't planned to do that until later. Five, I woke up that night in the middle of the night and had a feeling that I should wake Marc up for a blessing. I just rolled over and went back to sleep. Six, We were going to take a last trip the week all this started and we just never felt right about it. I've now learned to PAY ATTENTION! Maybe God is trying to tell you something. Anyway, those are just to name a few. So that morning I woke up, Monday,September 27 and I noticed a little bit of leaking. GROSS, I know. Anyway, I just did what my mom would do and went into work.
When it was late enough I called my Doctors office and they sounded like they thought I was a confused first timer (and I was) and said better be safe and have it checked. So I tell the girls at work, "I'll be right back" and almost drive past Utah Valley hospital to go to American Fork hospital where my doctor is and I head up to Labor and Delivery and they take me back into a small room and hook monitors on and test the fluid.
The test was instant and She said "Yep, That's amniotic fluid" and walked out of the room. I was sitting there in that hospital bed thinking.... okay, so lets plug it up. She comes back in just after a few minutes and in one breath says "Well...." Big deep breath "You get to take a ride in an ambulance to Utah Valley cause we don't take anything under 34 weeks and you're not leaving the hospital until you have a baby." Then she was gone.
I just sat there a minute like, surely I heard that wrong. I'm not going to freak out just yet. Then the on call Doctor comes in and says "So your water broke!"
I said "My water's broken???"
Then he realized he was dealing with a clueless first timer. He let me know that they were going to give me certain medicines and let me know why they had to transfer me and No, I can't drive myself. After he was done explaining I asked "Should I be freaking out?"
He replied "Yeah, Kinda." Thanks for the honesty Doc.
I had been texting Marc the entire time and he was on his way. So I did what any girl would do. I called Mom. I very calmly explained to her what was going on. Then she started to cry and I thought, if she's crying this is a big deal. Now Marc has shown up and that's when I just lost it. But he's no tuffy. He was bawling too. We just waited a few moments for the ambulance to show up. And they strapped me in and loaded me up, they sent Marc on his own and away we went. It is such a weird feeling to be treated like such a huge medical emergency when you feel perfectly fine.
We finally arrived at Utah Valley and they cruised me up to their Labor and Delivery unit and got me all settled. Marc showed up seconds later.
Next we met with Doctor after Doctor. And did an ultrasound to check how much fluid was still around the baby. It looked really good. The Doctors also explain that they can only give me drugs to stop contractions for two days due to the risk of infection. The two day window they wanted was to get a steriod in me for the baby's lungs. Then after those two days, if I made it, I was on my own. If I made it to 34 weeks the risk of leaving Jude in the womb is greater then the benefit. The risk of infection is too high and at the point, I would be induced. So I had convinced myself that mind of matter was the way to go. So I Settled in for what I thought was going to be a long stay. The girls I work with even had my baby shower there in the hospital.



They are so great!
Anyway, things were going well, I am now 31 weeks pregnant and on Thursay, September 30, After a big fat salad from Cafe Rio (Thanks Vicki and Kehley, Love you) Contractions started at about 10:00 at night. Unlike the earlier ones, these HURT!! I just kept saying F - F - F - F, Don't worry kids, not the word, just the letter. Ha Ha. They gave me something for the pain though my IV since the anesthesiologist was not available. The nursed checked me and I was a 6.5. I knew it was a big deal that she even checked me cause that was not something they would do since the risk of infection was so high. Soon the anesthesiologist showed up and I was a 9.5, Marc was in a white space suite and I was being wheeled into the O.R. since it is hooked on to the NICU. After just a few pushes Jude made his arrival. 3:49 am October 1st, 4 lbs 1 oz 16 inches long. They rushed him off and Marc followed like a sick puppy. Soon they came back since he was doing so well and I got to see him.




So amazing. And everyone was so great to us. Anyway, the next few weeks were spent sitting quietly by Jude's side waiting for him to finish growing. 5 weeks 3 days later we brought him home and now we are starting to forget the whole thing even happened. AMAZING!! And here we are today! And if you made it this far reading this post. YOU ARE AMAZING! Thanks.

Baby Jude

He just couldn't wait to come out and party. He just didn't know he wasn't invited yet!! Lil' Stinker!!

Well, Jude came painfully into this world, with his momma kickin and screamin some swears the whole way, on Friday morning, October 1st, at 3:49 am. Nine weeks early. Weighing in at 4lbs 1 oz and 16 inches long. And he is just AMAZING!!!







Hard to be mad at him for coming so earlier when he is just so dang cute!!!

He sure is tiny. It is comforting to see he is definitely not the smallest guy in there too. They refer to him as one of the "bigger babies!" It is so amazing what God has blessed us with in the advancements of medicines. We feel so fortunate to be where we are and where Jude is getting the best care possible. He is so tinsy tiny but carries such a HUGE spirit with him. It warms your soul to be near him. Which I am sure is due to the fact that such a short time ago he was in our saviors arms. Hopefully promising he'll be with him again some day. He is truly an amazing person already. You can just feel it when you're near him. Which makes it sooo hard to leave him there. You want to be near him at all times so your heart can just feel at peace. awww.... I just love him.

Now for some awww momemts that we have captured on camera....









And just incase those were not enough to just knock you over... This one should do the trick!



Don't say I didn't warn you!! SERIOUSLY though!! How do you catch a negative two month old crackin a smile. He's just laughin cause he knows he is going to work us over some day!!